Governing Farmers through data? Digitization and the Question of Autonomy in Agri-environmental governance

• Published in: Journal of rural studies 2022-10, Vol.95, p.173-182
• Main Authors: Forney, Jérémie, Epiney, Ludivine
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Agricultural industry; Agricultural management; Agricultural production; Autonomy; Big Data; Bureaucracy; Digitization; Discourses; Environmental governance; Environmental policy; Farmers; Farms; Governance; Management techniques; Rhetoric; Sustainability; Time use; Transformation
• ISSN: 0743-0167; 1873-1392
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jrurstud.2022.09.001

The digitization of the agricultural sector is connected with a number of promises that have been widely debated in both the public and the academic spheres. But attention has been mainly focused on farm production or management techniques, often neglecting the realm of governance, which has also begun a digital transformation. This article explores the premises of an informational model of governance and the integration of a logic of big data into agri-environmental governance in Switzerland. More specifically, it examines this process from the perspective of the autonomy of the farmers, by looking more specifically at how these changes in governance create or not possibilities for farmer autonomization, in terms of identity, action, and structures. In spite of some discourses that present digitization as a tool to lighten administrative constraints and a way to aid in the independent management of agricultural activity, our analysis reveals a more qualified picture: at the present time, digitization reinforces the bureaucratic approach to governance, and the contribution of digital technologies to the interests of the farmers themselves remains minimal. In conclusion, it appears that the accent that has been placed on the service done for farmers is primarily part of a rhetoric aimed at encouraging involvement, and that rhetoric contributes to making other interests, which are more central to the constitution of an informational governance model, invisible. •Agri-environmental monitoring has accelerated with the development of digital tools.•Most of the existing agri-environmental monitoring remains based on “small data”.•There are clear signs of increasing bureaucratic rationales through the digitization of governance instruments.•The perceived risks of farmers dependence on key actors are not counterbalanced by clear prospects of autonomization.•The digitization of agri-environmental governance is guided by interests other than those of the farmers.